The Soviet War Memorial [antikvár]

THE MEMORIAL STATUEOur unit with a roar stormed up the hill. The cold wet mountain, but I could not pass: Too much; I fell, and falling reached the grass. I fell and lay there, for the moment still.Soldiers found me in the Spring. They said the homeland needed me And I was willing, for to see The glorious future opening : "But I am dead, and turned to sand, Worn down by wind and overgrown." "Stand up!" they cried. 1 had to stand!-A lump of stone, a sculptor's hand-He mode me new from that great stone.In the name of the fatherland, I have taken my stance With the cop on my head where the clouds dance.And from here there's nothing I can't see: Uplands and downlonds, my spirit running free Where I gave prisoners freedom, the hungry food; Where I gave lord's lands to farm hands And where scarcely a stone standsAnd so I tower, a symbol to outlast all strife And that is my mission, from the far side of life.- Boris SluzkiBERLIN, CAPITAL OF THE GDR -that doesn't mean only skyscrapers, highways and building sites towered over by cranes; it is not only theatres, shopping centres and places of entertainment. For everywhere within the city, ample space has been left for tranquillity and reflection. Visitors leaving the overhead railway at Treptow and strolling down plane-lined Pushkin Allee soon see, to their right, a rather small semi-circular forecourt backed by a richly ornamented portal. All day long tourist coaches converge on this spot, bringing groups of visitors from countless countries to view the Grove of Honour. Statisticians have estimated that the number of foreign visitors coming each year to the GDR capital, total three times Berlin's actual population. Most of these tourists include the Soviet War Memorial in their sight-seeing Itinerary.